Learning List Meets the Business Roundtable’s Call to Action

On Monday, the Business Roundtable released a report, Taking Action on Education and Workforce Preparedness, which outlines a plan for preparing the U.S. workforce to be competitive in the 21st century. The plan calls for full implementation of the Common Core State Standards, asserting that the CCSS are more rigorous than previous state standards, aligned with the expectations of higher …

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News Flash

We just learned that the Urban Curriculum Council asked Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to submit the instructional materials they submitted for state adoption to Learning List for review, as well. The Urban Curriculum Council is a consortium of the instructional leaders of the 17 largest school districts in Texas. Why did they make this request? On September 20th, …

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Harder vs. More Rigorous

During a public hearing over social studies lessons included in Texas’s CSCOPE curriculum management system, educators and members of Texas’s State Board of Education got into a discussion about the meaning of “rigor.” All agreed that giving students material that is developmentally appropriate for a higher grade may be “harder,” but is not more rigorous.  Research suggests that rigorous instructional materials: …

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Grants and Funding Update: “Family Engagement”- Deadline Approaching

Parental engagement is a well-documented contributor to student success. So much so, that the Texas legislature just added a requirement to the state accountability system that districts make public a self-evaluation of, among other factors, the level of community and parental involvement. Here’s a carrot….the application deadline for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Family Engagement Grants is September 23, 2013. WKKF …

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CSCOPE Debate – A Post-Mortem

For those who had other plans on Saturday evening and thus, did not watch the Patrick-Ratliff debate over CSCOPE, here’s a run-down. The debate, moderated by Scott Braddock, Quorum Report, continued for two hours, and despite trading a few jabs, both men focused their comments on answering questions from two panelists: Dr. Mary Ann Whiteker, Superintendent of Hudson ISD and …

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CSCOPE Debate

If you have lived in Texas over the last 10 months, it would have been difficult to escape the debate over the CSCOPE lesson plans. If you are involved in public education in any way, it would have been impossible. CSCOPE is a curriculum management system aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) that was developed by a …

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Why we developed Learning List

In 2011, the Texas legislature decentralized and largely deregulated the purchasing of instructional materials and technology by school districts.  At the same time, school districts nationally were facing the challenge of implementing the Common Core State Standards. Education reformers were touting the cost-saving and academic benefits of online courses.

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